When the unlikely pair meets, a filmic affair begins on office desks and in Toronto hotel rooms, creating a false reality that offers solace in its secrets.
Two very different people, trapped by everyday expectations, take pleasure in destroying those expectations together. Their relationship, with all its differences and failings, with all its pleasure and pain, calls into question our rigid and limiting definitions of right and wrong, and what it means to be a partner, parent, lover, and human being.
Ronnie is 35 and has been living with Aaron for about five years. She is a hairdresser and he is a caterer. She helps him at one of his catering events one night and meets Charlie, a 50ish author and university professor. They are instantly attracted. Ronnie is feeling pressure from Aaron to get pregnant and Charlie is looking for something different outside his marriage and caring for his autistic son. They want each other but neither is willing to leave their comfortable lives.
The story is set in Toronto ... Ronnie and Aaron "live" not far from me in Parkdale and Charlie "lives" in the Annex. So when the author was talking about the different areas of the city the characters were in, I knew where she was talking about.
While I didn't like the story (it was bizarre) or the characters (I didn't warm up to them), I did like the writing style and that's what kept me reading. I was curious to see how things would end up. As a head's up, there is a lot of swearing and some adult activity.
